I plan on seeing it this weekend. Early indications are that it is quite good; I've heard some rather glowing praise, even from sources that are usually a bit bullish on Marvel films, and it is apparently on its way to shattering some box office records.

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Really want to see this one, don't know if I'll have the time or money to do so.

But Black Panther was my favorite part of Winter Soldier (a film I otherwise largely disliked) by far. Aside from the significance of Marvel finally having a film lead by someone other than a straight white man, he's just a cool character.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

Really want to see this one, don't know if I'll have the time or money to do so.

But Black Panther was my favorite part of Winter Soldier (a film I otherwise largely disliked) by far. Aside from the significance of Marvel finally having a film lead by someone other than a straight white man, he's just a cool character.

Civil War you mean.

I'm still annoyed DC beat them to the superheroine movie punch.

To the brave passengers and crew of the Kobayashi Maru... sucks to be you - Peter David

And yeah. Fifteen fucking movies before they get to one without a straight white dick in the lead, and still no female lead. Though to be fair, they've done way better on television.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: they've missed two really good opportunities to have a female lead film. Guardians should have had Gamora as team leader. And the continued absence of a Black Widow film is just embarrassing. The time for it, I think, would have been either in the initial run-up to Avengers or, if they didn't have the balls to risk someone without a straight white dick in the lead that early, then right after Winter Soldier.

Oh, I'm sure they'll do a female-lead film eventually. But everyone knows that the big climax of the current run is likely to be Infinity Wars. No franchise maintains consistent interest or quality forever, and I expect the MCU's fortunes will likely begin to wain after Infinity Wars. Which means that if they do have a female-lead film, it'll probably be just in time for the decline of the franchise to be blamed on the fact that they cast a woman. At least that's what I'm afraid of.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

Michael B Jordan really stole that show, and made some interesting points while doing so.

"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"
- A.B. Original, Report to the Mist

"I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
- George Carlin

I find how quickly everyone was willing to accept a new king a little unrealistic. As much as rule and tradition are important, they aren't set in stone. Any functional monarchy would know that giving the king near unlimited power to do whatever they want is not the way to go.

It's really annoying that Wankandans are so willing to follow the throne even when they all know this is wrong and problematic. I want Killmonger to have everything fall flat on his face because nothing he does commands respect or authority from actual human beings. The throne is only as powerful as the king is able to command the respect of the people he rules.

That would have been a more fitting end for an angry kid like Killmonger. Instead, we got another villain who got defeated by a force of strength. They went down dying with the belief that their ideology works, just that they weren't strong enough. It's rather annoying and slightly weakens the message and themes of the movie.

T'Challa should win not because he can heal himself and beat Killmonger in a fight, but because he reigns as a king that people actually like and respect.

Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.

It's really annoying that Wankandans are so willing to follow the throne even when they all know this is wrong and problematic. I want Killmonger to have everything fall flat on his face because nothing he does commands respect or authority from actual human beings. The throne is only as powerful as the king is able to command the respect of the people he rules.

I mean the king has actual superpowers too....

But really Killmonger is arriving right at the point the existing social order of Wakanda is about to undergo a change, the people there are about to start looking outwards anyway, and it's a conflict about how that happens and how they deal with the rest of the world.

Some people actively agree with Killmonger's agenda (like W'kabi, Daniel Kaluuya's character), of starting that relationship with the rest of the world adversarially. They're not just supporting him because he's the king, but because they agree with him.

Also, T'Challa doesn't just win because he beats Killmonger one on one, but because he actually did command respect, and from someone who otherwise naturally disagreed with him. That's how he got an army. (Personally I'm hoping they keep the current adversarial-but-not-enemies relationship with M'baku and canon be damned, Winston Duke was too much fun to waste as a villain).

It's really annoying that Wankandans are so willing to follow the throne even when they all know this is wrong and problematic. I want Killmonger to have everything fall flat on his face because nothing he does commands respect or authority from actual human beings. The throne is only as powerful as the king is able to command the respect of the people he rules.

I mean the king has actual superpowers too....

But really Killmonger is arriving right at the point the existing social order of Wakanda is about to undergo a change, the people there are about to start looking outwards anyway, and it's a conflict about how that happens and how they deal with the rest of the world.

Some people actively agree with Killmonger's agenda (like W'kabi, Daniel Kaluuya's character), of starting that relationship with the rest of the world adversarially. They're not just supporting him because he's the king, but because they agree with him.

Also, T'Challa doesn't just win because he beats Killmonger one on one, but because he actually did command respect, and from someone who otherwise naturally disagreed with him. That's how he got an army. (Personally I'm hoping they keep the current adversarial-but-not-enemies relationship with M'baku and canon be damned, Winston Duke was too much fun to waste as a villain).

Agreeing Wakanda should be more involved in world politics openly is different from wanting to build a world empire. Esepcially being led by a foreign warmonger that have yet to earn the trust of anyone.

Burning all their herbs that is a massive part of their culture should have broken the back of killmongers authority's as king.

Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.

And yeah. Fifteen fucking movies before they get to one without a straight white dick in the lead, and still no female lead. Though to be fair, they've done way better on television.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: they've missed two really good opportunities to have a female lead film. Guardians should have had Gamora as team leader. And the continued absence of a Black Widow film is just embarrassing. The time for it, I think, would have been either in the initial run-up to Avengers or, if they didn't have the balls to risk someone without a straight white dick in the lead that early, then right after Winter Soldier.

Oh, I'm sure they'll do a female-lead film eventually. But everyone knows that the big climax of the current run is likely to be Infinity Wars. No franchise maintains consistent interest or quality forever, and I expect the MCU's fortunes will likely begin to wain after Infinity Wars. Which means that if they do have a female-lead film, it'll probably be just in time for the decline of the franchise to be blamed on the fact that they cast a woman. At least that's what I'm afraid of.

We're getting Captain Marvel this fall. As in Carol Danvers. Still not a Black Widow movie, I grant...

”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

It's really annoying that Wankandans are so willing to follow the throne even when they all know this is wrong and problematic. I want Killmonger to have everything fall flat on his face because nothing he does commands respect or authority from actual human beings. The throne is only as powerful as the king is able to command the respect of the people he rules.

I mean the king has actual superpowers too....

But really Killmonger is arriving right at the point the existing social order of Wakanda is about to undergo a change, the people there are about to start looking outwards anyway, and it's a conflict about how that happens and how they deal with the rest of the world.

Some people actively agree with Killmonger's agenda (like W'kabi, Daniel Kaluuya's character), of starting that relationship with the rest of the world adversarially. They're not just supporting him because he's the king, but because they agree with him.

Also, T'Challa doesn't just win because he beats Killmonger one on one, but because he actually did command respect, and from someone who otherwise naturally disagreed with him. That's how he got an army. (Personally I'm hoping they keep the current adversarial-but-not-enemies relationship with M'baku and canon be damned, Winston Duke was too much fun to waste as a villain).

Agreeing Wakanda should be more involved in world politics openly is different from wanting to build a world empire. Esepcially being led by a foreign warmonger that have yet to earn the trust of anyone.

Burning all their herbs that is a massive part of their culture should have broken the back of killmongers authority's as king.

The Heart-Shaped herb is most likely something largely within the discretionary authority of a Wakandan King to do with as he pleased. Also, Eric can just as easily be interpreted as an returned exiled prince, not an outsider. By all appearences, he was still a legitimate king according to Wakandan rules. He had the right to challange and was successful

I doubt a cadet line challanging for the throne in order to push an alternate policy is unheard of in Wakandan politics. It's likely one of the functions of ritual combat to funnel these disputes into a one-on-one confrontation to settle them without wider violence.

Meanwhile, Eric's relative lack of legitimacy despite obeying the letter of the law is what fuels the constitutional crisis in the final act.

Agreeing Wakanda should be more involved in world politics openly is different from wanting to build a world empire. Esepcially being led by a foreign warmonger that have yet to earn the trust of anyone.

In the case of W'kabi, Killmonger won his allegiance by doing what T'challa and T'chaka failed to do. I can see how a large enough segment of the Wakandan population might be in support of an adversarial relationship with the rest of the world, since their isolation has resulted in people like Klawe being their only real experience with outsiders.

Unrelated to the topic of discussion, they don't come right out and say it, but I suspect that the Soul Gem is in the middle of the vibranium mound. Wakandan tech, particularly the updated Black Panther suits, has a similar aesthetic to other Infinity stone-based MCU tech. And between the herb elixir granting superpowers and making the skin temporarily glow, the fact that the process looks fairly painful, and how drinking it can result in a trip to the spirit realm to talk to the dead, the heart-shaped herbs practically scream "I'm a plant infused with Soul Gem energy."

The Heart-Shaped herb is most likely something largely within the discretionary authority of a Wakandan King to do with as he pleased. Also, Eric can just as easily be interpreted as an returned exiled prince, not an outsider. By all appearences, he was still a legitimate king according to Wakandan rules. He had the right to challange and was successful

I doubt a cadet line challanging for the throne in order to push an alternate policy is unheard of in Wakandan politics. It's likely one of the functions of ritual combat to funnel these disputes into a one-on-one confrontation to settle them without wider violence.

Meanwhile, Eric's relative lack of legitimacy despite obeying the letter of the law is what fuels the constitutional crisis in the final act.

The Heart-shaped herb is something that allows other clans to gain the powers of the Black Panther. Burning the crops effectively means no next generation have the chance to gain the superpower to protect Wakanda and acts as a means to stop any further challenges.

Most monarchies impose certain rules on what a monarch can or cannot do. There's a limit because otherwise, the kingdom will fall apart when a monarch abuses their power at the expense of their people.

In the case of W'kabi, Killmonger won his allegiance by doing what T'challa and T'chaka failed to do. I can see how a large enough segment of the Wakandan population might be in support of an adversarial relationship with the rest of the world, since their isolation has resulted in people like Klawe being their only real experience with outsiders.

An adversarial relationship does not equate to world conquest and imperialism. What you'll end up saying is that there is a large segment of Wakanda people that think that imperialism is right.

Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.

Unrelated to the topic of discussion, they don't come right out and say it, but I suspect that the Soul Gem is in the middle of the vibranium mound. Wakandan tech, particularly the updated Black Panther suits, has a similar aesthetic to other Infinity stone-based MCU tech. And between the herb elixir granting superpowers and making the skin temporarily glow, the fact that the process looks fairly painful, and how drinking it can result in a trip to the spirit realm to talk to the dead, the heart-shaped herbs practically scream "I'm a plant infused with Soul Gem energy."

Black Panther is now in theaters and it’s great. Like, really great. And one of the best things about it is you don’t need to be super familiar with Marvel’s 17 previous movies to enjoy it. It totally works on its own. However, if you are familiar with those movies, maybe you walked out of the theater with a question.

That question isn’t exactly a spoiler since, well, the answer isn’t in the movie. But, just in case, we’ll leave this right here.

---in article spoiler tag---

Again, we aren’t spoiling anything in the movie, just something that’s not in the movie.

That is, of course, the Soul Stone! The final of six Infinity Stones Thanos needs for Avengers: Infinity War. It’s not there! We were wrong! Fans had long suggested the stone would either be in Thor: Ragnarok or Black Panther but, now that we’ve seen Panther, we know it’s not in there.

Why though? Well, the film’s co-writer and director Ryan Coogler has a pretty good answer for that.

“I love the Infinity Stones as much as any comic book fan,” Coogler told IGN. “It’s just Wakanda already has its thing, which is Vibranium. For us, that was special enough. So to throw in something like another special thing didn’t feel right. It felt like we should stick with our one MacGuffin for the country and explore that. Let that be the important thing because, frankly we didn’t need to have another piece like that.”

“[Marvel Studios] never really was interested in putting a stone in there, either,” he concluded.

So that answers that. By simple process of elimination, it seems like now the whereabout of that pesky soul stone won’t be revealed until Avengers: Infinity War. Thankfully, that’s less than three months away.

Black Panther is now in theaters.

Vibranium is Wakanda's thing, and is more the metal of the meteor that struck africa and interacted with the environment in very strange ways. The Soul Stone is somewhere else.

And yeah. Fifteen fucking movies before they get to one without a straight white dick in the lead, and still no female lead. Though to be fair, they've done way better on television.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: they've missed two really good opportunities to have a female lead film. Guardians should have had Gamora as team leader. And the continued absence of a Black Widow film is just embarrassing. The time for it, I think, would have been either in the initial run-up to Avengers or, if they didn't have the balls to risk someone without a straight white dick in the lead that early, then right after Winter Soldier.

Oh, I'm sure they'll do a female-lead film eventually. But everyone knows that the big climax of the current run is likely to be Infinity Wars. No franchise maintains consistent interest or quality forever, and I expect the MCU's fortunes will likely begin to wain after Infinity Wars. Which means that if they do have a female-lead film, it'll probably be just in time for the decline of the franchise to be blamed on the fact that they cast a woman. At least that's what I'm afraid of.

We're getting Captain Marvel this fall. As in Carol Danvers. Still not a Black Widow movie, I grant...

Yeah, I knew there was talk about a Captain Marvel film, but I didn't know the release date was that soon. Good to know.

Still bitter that it took this long, and that there's no Black Widow movie.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.

Haven't seen it yet, but there was an amusing sniplet on BBC News the other day. In a scene at the UN General Assembly, one recognisable flag is the Red Dragon of Wales. Apparently in the MCU, Wales is an independent country.

Vibranium is Wakanda's thing, and is more the metal of the meteor that struck africa and interacted with the environment in very strange ways. The Soul Stone is somewhere else.

Fair enough. I was under the impression that the Soul Stone was at the center of the meteor, and that vibranium was a byproduct of it, either created directly by the stone or the result of the stone, for lack of a better word, corrupting more mundane metals. The Wakandans then would have used the vibranium, along with similarly corrupted materials like the heart-shaped herbs, as the basis for their tech and science. Which, if this interpretation were true, would have been a lot smarter than trying handle an Infinity Stone directly like what Hydra/SHIELD/Stark did with the Tesseract and the Mind Gem.

It also would have been an easy explanation for some of vibranium's weirder properties, like how it is good for pretty much any use, the seemingly infinite supply of the mound, Cap's shield doing what it does, etc. Since it would have been a byproduct of the Soul Gem, then the metal would somehow be responsive to the desires of the person wielding it. So, in effect, the vibranium would allow Cap's shield to return to him because that how he wants it to work.

But, if the people making the movie say I'm wrong, then I'm obviously wrong.

Also, T'Challa doesn't just win because he beats Killmonger one on one, but because he actually did command respect, and from someone who otherwise naturally disagreed with him. That's how he got an army. (Personally I'm hoping they keep the current adversarial-but-not-enemies relationship with M'baku and canon be damned, Winston Duke was too much fun to waste as a villain).

It was a quick flash but I could have swore I saw M'baku on the council at the end.

"May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk." - Ancient Egyptian Blessing

Ivanova is always right.
I will listen to Ivanova.
I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God.
AND, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! - Babylon 5 Mantra

Haven't seen it yet, but there was an amusing sniplet on BBC News the other day. In a scene at the UN General Assembly, one recognisable flag is the Red Dragon of Wales. Apparently in the MCU, Wales is an independent country.

Hydra, Loki, Thanos... nobody ever realized who the greatest threat to the United Kingdom was.

David Cameron.

"Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?"

"Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow though."

-Generals Sherman and Grant, the Battle of Shiloh.

"They are nearer to me than the other side, in thought and sentiment, though bitterly hostile personally. They are utterly lawless - the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with - but after all their faces are set Zion-wards."- Lincoln on radical Abolitionists.

"You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"-Terry Pratchett's DEATH.